Chapter 38: Chapter 38: Off-Campus Activity, Part Two

Chapter 38: Off-Campus Activity, Part Two

Room 405 stayed plain, quiet, and stubbornly normal.

There was no hazy mood in the air, no private little atmosphere building between them, and no reason for anyone passing by to misunderstand what was happening inside. Audra explained the next set of problems. Cyrus listened, wrote, corrected his work, and occasionally asked a question when the step on the page stopped making sense.

The only sounds in the room were her voice, the drag of his pencil, and the faint movement of students passing somewhere down the hall.

When lunch break was almost over, Audra closed the notebook in front of her and looked across the desk.

"This afternoon’s activity is a group project, so I’ll be counting on you, Cyrus."

Cyrus lifted his head.

His bangs hid most of his eyes, which meant Audra could not see the exact look on his face. From his posture alone, he did not seem affected by the way she had used his first name so naturally.

"I’ll do what I can," he said.

Audra waited half a beat.

Nothing happened.

He did not freeze. He did not look away. He did not show the smallest sign that her wording had landed anywhere special.

Cyrus did not really understand why she was suddenly being that polite about an activity neither of them knew much about, but since she had spoken properly, he gave her a small nod in return. He was not some impossible ice block who refused basic manners.

The bell rang soon after.

When everyone returned to homeroom, the person who entered was not their next subject teacher, but their homeroom adviser. She stood at the podium and went through the afternoon’s reminders with the seriousness of someone who had already imagined every possible way teenagers could injure themselves with kitchen tools.

They had to stay with their groups.

They could not leave the assigned activity area.

They had to listen to the instructors.

They had to be careful with knives.

They had to treat the fire stations like fire stations, not toys.

If anything happened, they had to call an adult immediately.

By the time she finished, several students were already restless with excitement. A field activity in the middle of a school week was still school, technically, but it did not feel like school. That alone was enough to improve everyone’s mood.

The class was led outside and onto a charter bus waiting near the academy entrance.

Cyrus took a window seat and watched St. Alder Academy drift away behind him. The scenery outside moved backward in strips of road, trees, storefronts, and late-summer light.

For some reason, the simple motion made him feel quietly pleased.

Even the students who usually complained through half the school day seemed brighter during an off-campus trip. People talked louder. Someone near the back was already joking about burning water. A few girls were comparing snack bags as if they were preparing for a long expedition instead of an afternoon cooking activity.

Cyrus sat properly in his seat, calm and almost comfortable.

A bus ride was not a huge thing, but it was still a ride away from walls he knew too well.

When he raised his head, he noticed someone in the row ahead looking back at him.

It was the boy from the campus store.

Miles Sutton.

Miles stared at him for a few seconds with an expression Cyrus could not read, then turned around without saying anything.

Cyrus had no idea what that was about.

Owen, seated beside him, had noticed too. He leaned closer and lowered his voice.

"Did you do something to Miles?"

"I didn’t do anything. I don’t know him."

"Then why was he looking at you like that? Unless he figured something out?"

Cyrus knew what Owen meant.

Owen was wondering whether Miles had somehow seen through Cyrus’s hidden appearance.

Cyrus shook his head. "He didn’t figure that out. I don’t know why he looked back."

"That makes it even weirder."

Owen glanced once more at Miles’s seat, then looked back at Cyrus.

With his face still hidden behind his bangs, Cyrus looked gloomy, quiet, and forgettable in a way that made people slide past him without thinking too hard. If he showed the face he used at The Full Moon Lounge, the distance between him and other people would change instantly.

Owen had seen enough to understand that.

The bus drove for a little over twenty minutes before it pulled into a wide outdoor education site. There were open picnic spaces, a few low buildings, and, farther off, a stretch of woods thick enough to count as a small forest.

That explained why the adviser had repeated the fire-safety warning so many times.

Only a few classes were attending the activity. Cyrus counted roughly four groups of students from different homerooms, all being herded toward a cooking area where rows of outdoor stations had been set up.

The stations looked like a mix between campfire pits and prep counters. Each one had a sturdy cooking surface, a small firebox, basic utensils, cutting boards, and baskets of ingredients.

Cyrus studied them with real curiosity.

He had never cooked outside.

He had never really cooked inside either.

His apartment had a tiny kitchen area, and the stove worked as far as he knew, but school, work, sleep, and food costs had already taken up most of his attention. Cooking required time, planning, and enough confidence not to ruin perfectly good ingredients.

Buying ready-made food had always felt safer.

Now, looking at the open-air cooking stations, he felt something close to anticipation.

The instructor for the activity wore a chef’s hat and carried a ladle like it was a pointer. He looked energetic enough to make up for half the students already sweating in the sun.

Once everyone had gathered by group, he launched into a loud explanation about outdoor cooking.

Heat control.

Knife safety.

Washing produce.

Teamwork.

Not panicking if something burned.

He walked back and forth between the stations while speaking, gesturing at the ingredients, the fireboxes, and the stack of supplies near the edge of the clearing.

Cyrus listened carefully at first.

After a while, he realized the instructor had said a great deal, but very little of it could be directly used by someone who had never made a meal before.

The instructor clapped his hands.

"Everything you need is either at your station or in the supply area. You have basic ingredients, seasonings, water, and tools. You’ll need to handle the fire yourselves, so pay attention and work together. Knives stay on the prep table unless you’re using them properly. If you make a mess, you clean it. If you start a fire outside the cooking box, you call an adult."

A student raised a hand. "Can we make something different from what you showed us?"

"You can make whatever your group can manage," the instructor said. "This is your dinner, so use your judgment."

The moment he said that, half the students became visibly more interested.

Cyrus looked down at the station in front of his group and noticed the firebox underneath.

It was wood-fired.

The small pile of wood already provided looked nowhere near enough to cook a full meal.

Cyrus, Audra, Faye, Iris, and Owen stood around their station and looked at one another for a few seconds.

Iris Wexley broke the silence first.

"Are we making the dish he demonstrated, or do we want to do something else?"

Owen crouched beside the ingredient crate and began checking what they had. "There are potatoes, carrots, onions, chicken, rice, and a decent amount of seasoning. There’s curry powder too. We could probably make curry without too much trouble."

Iris looked around the group. "Then curry works for everyone?"

Audra nodded.

Faye gave a small nod behind her thick glasses.

Cyrus nodded as well.

Iris seemed slightly relieved, though her expression carried the faint strain of someone already preparing to be responsible for the entire group if things went wrong.

She probably disliked vague agreement.

If people gave no opinion now and complained later, that would be annoying.

Cyrus, however, had no complaint at all.

Curry was something he had not eaten before.

That alone made it worth looking forward to.

He also noticed something else.

Owen and Iris seemed more familiar with each other than ordinary classmates. Their rhythm was casual, and Iris did not need to soften her voice much when asking him to check ingredients. Owen did not act stiff around her either.

They looked less like classmates who happened to be grouped together and more like people who had known each other for years.

Cyrus stood quietly behind his bangs and kept observing.

Iris glanced at the station supplies, then began assigning tasks.

"Anyone who can cook should stay and help prep. Anyone who can’t cook can collect more firewood. Does that sound fair?"

"That works for me," Owen said.

"I can do that," Cyrus said.

Iris looked at Audra. "I can cook a little. Audra, you know how too, right?"

"I know enough to help," Audra said.

"What about you two?" Iris asked, turning toward the others.

"I don’t cook," Owen said, raising both hands in surrender.

"I don’t cook either," Cyrus said.

For a brief moment, everyone’s attention shifted toward Faye.

Behind her heavy lenses, Faye lowered her eyes and spoke quietly.

"I know a little."

"That’s perfect, then," Iris said. "The girls can handle prep and cooking. The boys can gather firewood. Is everyone fine with that?"

Cyrus had no objection.

Owen clearly had none either.

If other people knew how to turn ingredients into food, Cyrus was willing to respect their professional authority.

He and Owen left the cooking area together, following the signs that pointed toward the wooded trail. Several other boys from different groups were heading the same way.

Under the trees, the sun became much easier to tolerate.

The activity organizers had obviously prepared the whole setup in advance. Neatly cut pieces of dry wood had been scattered around designated spots in the forest, close enough to find, but spread out enough that students still had to search a little.

Cyrus understood.

This was not about surviving in the wilderness.

This was about making students divide labor, cooperate, and feel like they had done something practical without anyone truly being at risk.

Honestly, that was reasonable.

Real wilderness survival sounded like a terrible school activity. Someone would absolutely get lost, injured, or bitten by something.

More students entered the woods behind them, and the scattered wood began disappearing quickly.

Cyrus and Owen gathered pieces at a steady pace. Owen carried his bundle under one arm and kept checking the ground for cleaner pieces.

After a few minutes, Cyrus looked over at him.

"You and Iris know each other?"

Owen brightened a little, probably because Cyrus had started the conversation first.

"Yeah, we’ve known each other since elementary school."

He picked up another piece of wood and continued, "Our families have been neighbors for years too."

"So you’re childhood friends."

"You could call it that."

Cyrus studied him.

That made things more interesting.

He still remembered Owen’s previous online romance problem. Owen’s appearance was not bad, his family seemed comfortable, and he had a capable childhood friend right there in class. Standing beside Iris, he did not look mismatched at all.

So why had Owen gone looking for romance online?

Cyrus shifted the firewood in his arms and glanced toward the clearing where their group’s station waited.

It was possible that human relationships were more complicated than books made them sound.

It was also possible that Owen was simply bad at seeing what was already close to him.